Solving problems

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dun

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This is pretty long but worth the read!

Masterminding at the Barber Shop

The father was a third generation barber in a small
community in the Mid-west. The shop had been handed
down from his grandfather, to his father, and was not
only a barbershop but more of a community center.

Here you could not only get your hair cut, but could
enjoy coffee and donuts and spend time with your
neighbors sharing the news of farms and families. The
shop had grown to include 10 stylists who cut all the
men's hair and all the women's hair in the community.

The owner's son came home from graduate school over
spring break to find his father depressed and
reclusive. Finally getting his father to share what
the problem was, the father confided that there was a
new, national chain that had been moving across the
country, bringing in cheap hair salons into all of the
different communities and driving everyone out of
business.

Even though the community had loved all of the work
that he had done - the perms and the haircuts and the
styles over the years - right down the street opened
up this new national chain. It offered six dollar
haircuts. Person after person had left to go to the
new low cost shop, the father told his son,

"There is absolutely NO way I can compete with $6.00
haircuts. So much of my clientele has now gone to the
new shop that I have no choice but to close our shop.
After three generations, we are going bankrupt. I
can't pay the barbers or the overhead anymore," he
despondently said with his hands covering his face so
his son would not see the tears rolling out of his
eyes. The son said,

"You know, this last semester I took a 'science of
success' program that was offered for extra credit in
my marketing class. One thing I learned was something
that Einstein said:

"To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard
old problems from a new angle, requires creative
imagination." Albert Einstein

"So, Dad, we have to find another way to think about
this. We've got to find another way to see this.
Another one of the strategies I learned may help us."

So the son left the room and brought back a notebook
and a pen. He told the Dad about "Masterminding," a
strategy introduced in the 1930's by Napoleon Hill who
had been commissioned by Andrew Carnegie to study the
patterns of extremely successful people.

"Here's what we do. We let ourselves think of any idea
that comes to mind and we write it down. No editing.
We get a flow of ideas for 15 to 20 minutes and try to
get as many as possible. No idea is off limits. Let's
go." The father said,

"Well, the only idea I've got is to close the shop!"
The son said,

"Well, you're right that IS an idea." And he wrote it
down as Idea No. 1. Then the son said,

"Ok, let's keep going."

Before long the son and the father started getting a
flow of ideas and writing down every one of them, even
every crazy thing that came to mind. When they
finished, one of the ideas absolutely jumped off the
page and they looked at each other in astonishment and
said,

"This just might work!"

The son left the next day to go back to college. The
father implemented the idea. Within 6 weeks, not only
had his drop in clientele completely returned, but the
number of customers was now 11% higher than ever in
the history of the shop. Do you know what the idea was
that turned sure failure into a new course of
increasing success? The idea was, to place a BIG sign
on top of the shop that read,

"WE FIX SIX DOLLAR HAIRCUTS!!"

Any time we think we have a BIG problem that can't be
solved, THAT THOUGHT is the problem.

Learning to think in a new way brings Freedom and
Power.

~ Author Unknown ~
 
Nice story. Everyone may take something different from the story. I take that Quality is King. A good hair cut is worth twice what a poor cut is worth. A good ribeye is worth a lot more than a bad one.
Glad you posted that.
 
Dun, that technique is used in business today. Its called brainstorming - and it works every time.

The trick to making it work is you can't reject ANY suggestion, no matter how ridiculous it may sound at the time because someone else may have a different perspective on that ridiculous thought and come up with something that will work.

Try it sometimes on a problem (a real problem) around the house. Make sure the kids participate (out of the mouths of babes).

Good post.
 

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